Researchers have shown that Autism had been on the rise in Japan, even after the country has banned the shots of MMR to its children.
MMR vaccine is one of the must-have vaccines to be given to children before they turn two, as prescribed by WHO. An edition of the journal Lancet in 1998 had published a paper relating the MMR vaccine to rise of autism in children. Based on the report, there had been considerable fall in vaccinating children with MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) leading to expectations of large outbreaks of measles in UK and some countries.The new study, which appears in Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, says that cases of reporetd autism in children continue to increase in Japan. While earlier studies have tried to define the relationship between MMR vaccine and autism, the current study attempts to take a first look in the position of autism after the vaccine had been withdrawn. The researchers for the study had said that aaalthough it cannot be ruled out that vaccine may cause autism in a very tiny percentage of children, it cannot be blamed for the number of autistic cases that had occurred in Japan during the ban.
Ten of the original 13 researchers of the initial paper linking autism and MMR have decided to retract their study. Their retraction will be published in the March issue of The Lancet.
Link:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18524895.300
